Mars Orbiter Mission is India's first interplanetary mission to planet Mars with an orbiter craft designed to orbit Mars in an elliptical orbit. The mission is primarily technological mission considering the critical mission operations and stringent requirements on propulsion and other bus systems of spacecraft.

Mission Objectives

One of the main objectives of the first Indian mission to Mars is to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission.

Following are the major objectives of the mission:

A. Technological Objectives:

Design and realization of a Mars orbiter with a capability to survive and perform Earth bound maneuvers, cruise phase of 300 days, Mars orbit insertion/capture, and on-orbit phase around Mars.

India launched its first spacecraft to Mars Tuesday (Nov. 5), on a mission that — if successful — will include the country in the exclusive club of nations capable of sending probes to the Red Planet.

The Mars Orbiter Mission lifted off at 3:08 a.m. CST (0908 GMT) on top a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) from the Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota.

The 4.5 billion rupee ($73.5 million) mission is sending the "Mangalyaan" (Hindi for "Mars-craft") spacecraft on an 10-month voyage to Mars to observe the planet's surface and atmosphere. The orbiter carries five scientific instruments, but its primary purpose is to be a technology demonstrator for future interplanetary missions, ISRO officials said.

In the fourth orbit-raising operation conducted this morning (Nov 11, 2013), the apogee (farthest point to Earth) of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft was raised from 71,623 km to 78,276 km by imparting an incremental velocity of 35 meters/second (as against 130 meters/second originally planned to raise apogee to about 100,000 [1 lakh] km). The spacecraft is in normal health. A supplementary orbit-raising operation is planned tomorrow (November 12, 2013) at 0500 hrs IST to raise the apogee to nearly 1 lakh km.

During the orbit-raising operations conducted since November 7, 2013, ISRO has been testing and exercising the autonomy functions progressively, that are essential for Trans-Mars Injection (TMI) and Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI).

During the first three orbit-raising operations, the prime and redundant chains of gyros, accelerometers, 22 Newton attitude control thrusters, attitude and orbit control electronics as well as the associated logics for their fault detection isolation, and reconfiguration have been exercised successfully. The prime and redundant star sensors have been functioning satisfactorily. The primary coil of the solenoid flow control valve was used successfully for the first three orbit-raising operations.

The critical maneuver to place India's Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft in the Mars transfer trajectory was successfully carried out in the early hours of Sunday (Dec. 1).

During this maneuver, which began at 00:49 IST, the spacecraft's 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for about 22 minutes providing a velocity increment of 648 meters per second to the spacecraft. Following the completion of this maneuver, the Earth orbiting phase of the spacecraft ended.

The spacecraft is now on a course to encounter Mars after a journey of about 10 months around the Sun.

It may be recalled that the Mars Orbiter spacecraft was launched into an elliptical parking orbit with a perigee (nearest point to Earth) of 248 km and an apogee (farthest point to Earth) of 23,550 km by India's workhorse launch vehicle PSLV on Nov. 5, 2013. Following this, the apogee height of the spacecraft's orbit was successively raised through a series of maneuvers to nearly 193,000 km.

Besides, health checks of the Mars Orbiter spacecraft as well as its payloads were performed. Since its launch, all systems on-board Mars Orbiter spacecraft are performing normally.

The spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Center at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore with support from the Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennae at Byalalu.

For the second time in as many days, a robotic spacecraft successfully entered orbit around Mars. This time however, the historic achievement was as much about where the probe came from as it was about it having arrived at the Red Planet.

"India has become the first [country] to have made history by reaching Mars on its maiden attempt," Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, said, referencing the success of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). "I congratulate the people of this country."

On Tuesday evening (Sept. 23), ten months after it left the Earth, the Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) Mangalyaan (Hindi for "Mars Craft") fired its main engine to enter Mars' orbit. The critical maneuver led to the probe becoming only the 13th craft in history to begin circling the Red Planet.